brown rice and "bad food"
 

am reading "when hell breaks loose" by cody lundin. read something i thought was really worth sharing here.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

this man is a VERY brave man. I can see him trying the rice, thats all well and good, but NEVER, NEVER EVER risk eating food out of even a slightly swelled can. Botulism is no freakin joke at all. Even if the BEST of scenarios, a person eating it in a hospital waiting room with a doctor next to him, the chance of death is so insanley high its not funny.

Botulism is a nuerotoxin and the LAST thing one would want in a REAL shtf scenario is any amount of a nuerotoxin coursing through their bodies. Its just silly to even attempt it, why take the risk?

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

I never have got the deal with "brown rice".
Everyone seems to laud it as a great survival food, I don't really see it that way.

I doesn't have as long a shelf life as white, takes 2-3 times the energy to
cook the stuff or it passes through your system completely undigested.
It has more nutrients than white... but I have plently of other stuff
that gives me nutrients, all I want rice for is carbs for energy and
something to mix with the other stuff I have...

There ya go.. gimme white rice... it maybe junk food for some
but I'll take it over brown any day... wild rice is a good compromise
between the two.
There's my contrarian opinion FWIW, YMMV, WTSHTF, STIYGT :smokin:

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

I'm with you on the brown rice. I had a quart that was refrigerated and vacuum sealed. Still went bad after less than 2 years. It wasn't nasty, understand; but I had to jazz it up with onion powder and anything else I had handy to cover up the off flavor. I've never had a similar problem with white rice and it cooks in 15 minutes, not 45.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

i wasn't recommending eating any "bad" canned good, for sure. but the spoiled brown rice got my attention and there has been some distain for it due to it's shorter shelf-life. i think brown rice tastes like crap, personally. but it is much more valuable nutricionally. as for eating food without nutritional value, he states that you will still end up hungy as your body isn't getting what it requires. this is not really something i had thought about. i have several bags of white rice in my stockpile

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

very good information, thanx

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

this is what i do for old brown rice---

measure out and add water like usual, then add about 1 tablespoon baking soda a nd stir it around good, then boil like you usually do. when its done, there is NO discernable off taste or smell. ive done this with stuff that was over a year old in a bucket that had an 'off' smell---it really works.

no gas probelms, runs or stomache upsets either.

i prefer white rice to store, but DH prefers brown, so i buy it and if it gets funky, i just grab the baking soda.

id NEVER use any swollen old cans of food---thats pushing it big time. the guy was brave, nuts or desperate.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

Human Beings used to eat rotten meat on a daily basis for thousands of years.
We all have the capability to eat just about anything, as long as one's immune system is fully functional and actively engaged, few people today can claim that state unfortunately.

I read somewhere that you can eat rotten eggs too, they taste very bad and sulfurry, but the bacteria that cause them to go bad is actually endemic to the gut and beneficial, not pathogenic in the least.
Disclaimer - eat rotten stuff at your own peril, I am not a medical professional.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

that is another very true statment. Food is not just food, its fuel and your body requires certain things, especialy things it doesnt store well like certian vitamins and minerals.

Brown rice is better nutrionaly as it has more less of its bulk removed from it. Its also a great source of fiber because of the bran. Just like it is better to have whole wheat than ultrac processes, bleached enriched flour.

To the prson complaining about a 2 year shelf life. 2 years isnt exactly next week. 2 years is a long time to store up food. You are no preparing to survive ONLY on your horded foods, you are preparing and hording to suppliment for a lack of food. Grow a small garden and grab a rifle, theres food in the wild. But even that is stretching it. Food will still be available, itll just cost alot more.

If there truly was no food, you wont give two shits about slightly rancid rice, trust me.

THe long and short is, you are storing food to avert starvation and hunger. You can have all the crap food in the world and still suffer greatly from starvation and hunger. And that effectes EVERYTHING< EVERY SINGLE THING that you do. If you dont have fuel, your body doesnt run. So make sure the fuel is better, not just a quick fix for starches and little bouts of energy. Malnurtrition from lack of vitamins and core susbatnaces is no joke.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

I am (or at least was). Don't eat food from swollen cans, ever. In a SHTF situation, medical care to save you may not be available!

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

I get uncle ben's converted rice to avoid the rancidity but have a few more nutrients when I fill the pantry.

I enjoy brown rice but purchase a small quantity for fast use.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

To clarify my own post, the rice was stored in a quart jar and vacuum sealed and refrigerated. I wasn't eating a lot of brown rice in those days; but when I wanted some, I opened the jar, measured out what I needed, re-vacuum sealed the jar and returned it to the refrigerator.

The problem with this procedure is that the vacuum pump does not discriminate between oxygen and nitrogen, nor does it remove all the air from the jar. So, whatever air remains in the jar when it is re-sealed is still 20% oxygen. And therein lies the problem I think. Had I used flexible containers that would allow me to shrink wrap the rice with the vacuum sealer, I might have had better results.

But an inflexible glass jar would work really well only with oxygen absorbers, since it is the oxygen that causes the oils in brown rice to grow rancid and a partial vacuum doesn't remove all the oxygen like the absorber would. Of course, using oxygen absorbers for something you are going to open and close repeatedly is not really practical.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

Rancid oil is not good for the body and I think it would cancel any benefit you might get from the higher nutrition of brown rice. I do eat brown rice day to day and have a few months supply on hand but white and parboiled for longer term storage.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

we are currently eating california long grain brown rice purchased in 1991. no problems to report. ( storage is double garbage bags, over the original paper 50 pound sack, in unheated trailer)
and if anyone comes near it without asking nicely, they are dog food.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

Damn! :) Why couldn't I have read this thread an hour ago? I just got back from purchasing a fair amount of brown rice to re-stock the already stocked cupboards. I bought more than we would normally use in about 6-9 months, but maybe I'll just start eating it more.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

Not a bad idea at all. We were in the potatoes at every meal camp for years. Now I find myself cooking beans and/or rice several times a week. Enjoy.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

Like Fullpower, I have brown rice I've had for about 2 years with no special storage and it's fine.

Cody Lundin can eat anything he wants. I'm not sure there is anything that could kill that man.

Heimdhal is right--we're stocking up on food, with the intention of rotating it into our regular diets. A crisis is not the time to introduce new and unfamiliar foods. Do you think your 8 year old will start eating rice and beans if she's never eaten it before, just because there's nothing else? Good luck with that.

If you are going to store something you can't use up before it will expire, plan on donating it to a soup kitchen or something.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

Brown rice should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer, because the oils in the bran in the rice (the brown outside cover that makes it brown rice, not white) are mostly unsaturated oils, which are good for you, but they tend to go rancid pretty easily.

Just had brown rice today. :D Baked in the oven:


Alton Brown's recipe... Baked Brown Rice:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/reci..._30663,00.html

1 1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.

Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a kettle or covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

i think i might have done the author a disservice in making him sound irresponsible. i think i really ought to complete the section i was taking from in the lead post:
the above was typed by me and any screw-up are my own. it is a very good book so far. am only half way through. named "when all hell breaks loose"

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

+1 on that.


Swollen cans is what you leave outside for the enemy.

Botulism is fatal under the BEST secnarios.... DO NOT CHANCE IT.


T

Re: brown rice and "bad food"
 

You have a nose on your face for a reason. If food smells bad, it's probably because it IS bad, don't push your luck!

Your tongue will back this up, the food will taste funny, tasteless, or acidic.

You may even have the best immune system in the world and stop all viruses and bacteria, but that is not going to stop a toxin! Think dangerous chemical/poison, that's what a toxin can be compared to. Toxins are the by-products of bacterial growth. If even bacteria eject it out of themselves, it is of no use to you as a human except as a poison.

Never eat bad food, even if you're desperate, as you run the risk of dying from a number of toxins, or getting so incredibly ill that even if you survive you will have lost the equivalent of 10 meals or more after throwing up, fat loss and muscle wastage. I've had severe food poisoning before and it's serious business.

You are far better off finding something else good to eat.

Here's an experiment for the curious, get some plain white rice, add some boiling hot water. Leave in a covered container (OUTSIDE) for a couple of weeks, come back and smell the ... ahem.. fragrance...